


Touch Me, I'm Going to Scream

by Bttmyoongi



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Isolation, Lance is kidnapped by the galra, M/M, Non-Canonical Violence, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Starvation, Stockholm Syndrome, Suicide Idealization, Torture, not really but sort of, that one will make more sense in later chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-08-19 01:39:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8184160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bttmyoongi/pseuds/Bttmyoongi
Summary: Death, he had come to realize, is not the opposite of life; death is the opposite of fear. Only death could spare him. 
(Or: Lance is Kidnapped by the Galra)





	1. Arbitrary Existence

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I've been working on this for quite a while a long with a few other projects. I'm quite proud of this, though it was a bit painful for me to write. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy the first chapter 
> 
> (Also I wrote this whole chapter while listening to Touch Me I'm Going to Scream by My Morning Jacket, hence the title. Go listen to it it's pretty great)

Lance sat, spine flat against the cell wall though it forced his head to hang forward at an uncomfortable angle. His entire body felt like it’d been soaked in acid. Earth, his mother’s serene aura, the sound of waves crashing against still sand; none of the things he’ previously come to associate with comfort  garnered the same response anymore. He knew, though it made him sick to his stomach to contemplate, that he could never feel at ease anywhere ever again. No person, no species, no planet was safe. Not with the Galra spreading like disease. Death, he had come to realize, is not the opposite of life; death is the opposite of fear. Only death could spare him.

 

_~Five Months Earlier~_

 

“I’ll distract the guards. Lance, Keith, I’m relying on you two to find and rescue the captives.  Pidge, Hunk, guard the castle with your lions in case we're noticed early on. We can’t rely on the particle barrier forever, especially not when we’re taking on such a large ship. Take out any pods you see but remember we can’t have too many people knowing we’re here so soon or we’ll never get out alive.” Shiro demanded, nodding to his team. Allura watched on as Hunk and Pidge ran to the hangars, followed quickly by Lance Keith and Shiro.

 

Hunk dropped the three of them off inside the ship, hurriedly flying away before he could be detected. The castle was hovering far enough away that they weren’t immediately noticeable but not far enough where they couldn’t arrive quickly to retrieve the three paladins if something were to go wrong.

 

“Alright,” Shiro said quietly. “If I remember correctly, the prisoner wing should be just off to the right. Find them and bring them back here as soon as possible. Send me a message when you do.”

 

“Doesn’t it make more sense for _you_ to look for the prisoners? Since you know this place, and all?” Keith asked. Shiro’s eyes darkened and he quickly looked away.

 

“I told you where the prisoners were. Even if I was finding them myself that’s all the prior knowledge I’d be able to give,” He said, scanning the hall cautiously.

 

“Do you know how to get the cell doors open? Do they put more than one person in each?” Lance piled on, irritated by the lack of foreknowledge they had all been sent on this mission with.

 

“I don’t know Lance,” he snapped, irked by the sudden interrogation. He looked back at the two of them, an apology written on his face. “I don’t remember any of that stuff. You guys are just going to have to figure it out, alright? I believe in you.” Keith nodded. Lance bit his lip but copied the action. “Alright. We should hurry, the less time we spend in here the less of a chance we have of getting caught. I’ll watch for guards, just try not to draw any attention” Shiro said before turning around and half-jogging down the hall. Keith and Lance walked off in the opposite direction

 

“I hate that they couldn’t tell us anything before sending us in here,” Lance complained. Keith didn’t look at him when he replied.

 

“What did you expect them to tell us? They don’t know any more than we do.”

 

“I _know_ that, it’s just, like, how are we expected to just come in here and break a bunch of prisoners out like it’s no biggie? Especially when we’re not even sure how to open the door? _Especially_ especially with how ginormous this ship is!”

 

“Well, I guess neither of us will know if we don’t try, huh?” Keith responded shortly, clearly just trying to get Lance to stop talking. The latter, embarrassed, snapped his mouth shut. He didn’t know why he expected sympathy or comfort from Keith who hardly even _likes_ him. He should have known better than to confide in him at all. He wished briefly that Hunk could have come with him; he would have listened to Lance no matter how whiny and annoying he got. He always had.

 

Lance wished that he could resent Keith, if not for how blunt and apathetic he was for the fact that everything about his independent spirit screamed ‘dickhead’. If he was being honest, Lance didn’t hate him, he envied his confidence, envied the way he carried himself like there wasn’t a single chance in the world they could ever get captured while snooping around in a warship 10 times the size of the castle. Lance didn’t understand how he could treat everything like it was nothing. It was a trait that Lance himself had always tried to fake, but evidently didn’t have. He couldn’t help but question and contemplate, it was in his nature.

 

The hall opened up at the end into a cul de sac-esque area, the only exit being the hallway they had just walked down. It made sense to Lance now why Shiro had gone off in the other direction. The entire radius of the cul de sac was large metal doors with narrow slats near the top, barely a half a foot of wall separating one door from the next, implying the prisoner cells were very compact. A part of the wall to their right stuck out a bit unnaturally.  Neither of the two wasted any time gandering, knowing it would be better that they were able to get in and out as fast as they possibly could.

 

Beside each door there was a pass code, presumably the means of opening each door. A million questions charged through Lance’s brain. _What is the pass code? Do all of the doors have the same one or are they all different? If we type it in wrong will an alarm sound? Are we even going to be able to get these people out?_ Beside Lance, Keith groaned.

 

“Fuck, how the hell are we supposed to open these doors without the code?” The shorter boy asked, more to himself than to Lance.

 

“I have an idea,” Lance replied anyway, turning around and walking back toward where they had come in.

 

“We can’t just leave, idiot,” Keith stated blankly, as if he was talking to a child. “We have to help these people.”

 

“I’m not leaving dipshit,” Lance countered. “There’s a panel over here. I’m gonna try and open the doors with it.” He walked over to the wall to the right of the entrance, staring at the space on the wall where it stuck out obviously. Lance smirked a bit before banging his bayard against it, watching as the cover of the panel jammed inward from the pressure before falling and clattering against the floor.

 

“Lance, could you be any fucking _louder_?” Keith scolded, walking to stand beside him. Lance ignored him entirely, eyeing the wires and chips intently.

 

“Congrats, Pidge 2.0, you found some fucking wires. How exactly is that going to help us?” Keith asked condescendingly. Lance thought for a moment, deciding that his plan was definitely better than none at all. Ignoring Keith, he stepped back and aimed his gun at the panel.

 

“Watch out,” He warned, waiting for Keith to step a safe distance away before he shot directly at the middle of the panel. The lights flickered for a second, and Lance heard the doors slide open.

 

“Holy shit, I can’t believe that worked!” Lance yelled victoriously. He smirked at the damaged control panel and then turned to Keith, who was looking behind them with wide, fearful eyes.

 

“Lance,” Keith strained out and Lance rotated around quickly to see what Keith was so spooked by. Behind all of the open doors, in neatly filed lines, stood multiple Galra soldiers, all with their guns raised.

 

“Those don’t look like prisoners!” Lance yelled alarmed, spinning on his heel and sprinting down the hall, Keith less than a step behind. The soldiers followed closely behind the two of them.

 

“It looks like they knew we were coming! We have to get out of here now!” Keith yelled over the echo of footsteps.

 

“If they knew we were coming than chances are the castle is probably under fire,” Lance responded, turning a corner. The soldiers were gaining on them and Lance thought for a moment, why none of them were shooting, just chasing.

 

“Lance we can’t get too far from where we came in, we don’t have any other way out!” Keith yelled, stopping suddenly and looking left and right, Lance stumbled, slowing a bit to look behind him.

 

“Keith keep running you’re gonna get caught! We have to keep going!” He yelled, but it suddenly hit him that he didn’t _know_ where Keith was, he could no longer see him, just a mass of Galra soldiers. ‘ _Shit, they must have gotten him_!’ Lance tried to run again, but another group of soldiers were running at him from up front. He was lost on what to do.

 

“Keith!” Lance yelled, turning in every direction to try and find him. He was surrounded by Galra soldiers at that point, standing in the middle of a thick circle of them. His brief moment of distraction gave the guard directly behind him the opportunity to grab his right wrist and wrench it backward. Lance regained his focus a second too late, his arm already pinned painfully against his back and his bayard laying across the floor, having flown out of his hand. A different guard kicked it far out of his reach. Lance felt panic bubble up in his chest, attempting to struggle his arm free from the guard’s grip.

 

“Lance?” He heard Shiro call down the hall. “Lance!” A few of the guards ran off in Shiro’s direction and Lance screamed.

 

“Shiro! They were waiting for us! Get out of here now!” Lance tried to struggle, kicking out at the soldiers but he knew he’d already lost. He was unarmed and surrounded. Something hard and blunt struck him right against his temple and he felt his body slip into unconsciousness, his last thought echoing in his head. _‘God dammit Keith, you better have gotten out of here.’_

 

When Lance woke up again his arms were chained together at the wrist, twisted uncomfortably with the way he was laying. He sat up, wincing at the pain from his head wound and his strained arms. He was in a cell, just barely the size of a queen sized bed. He swallowed down his claustrophobia, trying to calm his sudden quick heartbeat. Underneath him was a small soft mattress, basically a dog bed with it’s look. He could just barely fit all of his limbs if he curled up.. It looked nothing like the prisoner cells he’d seen on his mission before capture, for one there was no visible door, nothing but ugly purple walls. 

Lance sat in silence for a while, biting his lip. The room around him was eery in it’s silence but he was too scared to speak, to yell, to cry, afraid he’d be heard. He contemplated how long he’d been out. Unless they gave him something, he’d only been under from the blow to his head which meant it probably couldn’t have been any more than a few hours. The bed under him was warm with body heat.

 

He wondered what had happened to Keith, both irritated by and fearful of his sudden disappearing act. Lance had zero idea where he’d gone, if his abrupt stop had caused him to be captured or if he had ran off in a different direction and hid. His entire body trembled with anxiety.

 

Abruptly, a section of the wall faded away as if it had never been there at all and behind it stood a lone Galra guard. He was smirking at Lance, causing an agitated shiver to run down his spine. For a second, he thought about how the cells he had seen before seemed anachronistic and out of date compared to this one, especially with the hologram door. He quickly snapped his attention back to the situation at hand 

 

“Blue Paladin,” He stated simply, a twinge of controlled excitement in his tone. He didn’t step forward into the cell.  

 

“Congratulations, you’re not colorblind,” Lance responds, hoping he doesn’t notice his shaking hands. The guard doesn’t counter, doesn’t show any sign he’d even heard him. He was looking Lance up and down like a brand new toy. Lance tugged subconsciously on the chain holding his wrists together behind his back, grateful for the distance between them. He did _not_ like the look of this guy.

 

His entire conscious was screaming at him to demand to know where Keith was, to find out if he too had been captured, but he stayed silent.

 

“I think Zarkon will be very pleased to learn that we have you in our possession. You will give us the information we desire about Voltron,” The Galra said, not a hint of doubt in his voice. Those words sent a spike of anger through Lance’s veins and he tugged violently against his restraints.

  
“Like hell I will. I’ll let you kill me before I ever tell you _anything_ about Voltron!” He yelled, pulling against the chains restraining him to the floor. Part of him wished he was free so he could beat the shit out of the man in front of him, but a bigger part wanted to just sob until this nightmare was over. Never had Lance actually put so much thought into what would happen if he were to be captured, and the reality of it was too overwhelming and terrifying for Lance to handle at the moment. The Galra soldier smiled as if amused by his temper and nodded once before walking away. The wall reappeared, leaving Lance once again alone by himself.


	2. Traitory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Lance was being honest, he hadn’t expected to be interrogated so soon...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of foreshadowing in this!! Also sorry it's a little late I've been super busy this week. I hope you enjoy this chapter, it's a bit of a longer one.

When Lance awoke a second time hours, he was strapped down to a metal chair, which was screwed into the floor. His wrists were pinned to the arms of the chair with thick leather straps, his thighs, calves, and ankles all strapped down as well. He had been stripped of his paladin armor (the realization that someone had come in and stripped him while he slept making his stomach churn) and was sitting solely in his boxers. He wiggled around, cold and uncomfortably underclothed. 

 

_ ‘At least my hands aren’t stuck behind my back anymore’ _ he thought solemnly. His arms still ached from keeping them in such an unnatural position for such a long time. Seeing no one nearby in the (Purple, of fucking course) room, he pulled against his bounds, testing the durability. ‘ _ Damn, can’t even move an inch. _ ’ 

 

He had fallen into a fitful sleep hours after he was left in solitude. He wanted to bad to fight it, didn’t feel secure enough with his situation to sleep, but it wasn’t like he had anything else to do. It was too early and he wasn’t familiar enough with his surroundings to start thinking about escape just yet. Lance couldn’t stomach his vulnerability, the mere fact that anyone could barge in on him at any time, could watch him relentlessly and do whatever they pleased while Lance had zero jurisdiction made him want to scream out of unadulterated frustration. Obviously being held captive wasn’t ever a desirable situation but, with his arms lying uselessly behind him, Lance experienced an entirely new brand of rage. 

 

He slept, despite his qualms. Dreamless, but sleep nonetheless.

 

The room he was in now was wide and empty, reminding him of the training room back on the castle ship. The comparison caused a pang of homesickness in his heart. He was pretty sure at that point that he’d been taken to another ship, if not for the difference in prisoner cells than for the common knowledge that it would be all too easy for his team to rescue him if they knew exactly where to look. 

 

If Lance was being honest, he hadn’t expected to be interrogated so soon.

 

It was maddening, the boredom Lance felt sitting in that chair in silence with nothing to do other than count ugly purple floor tiles. Lance couldn’t tell if he’d been awake in that chair for three minutes or three hours before someone came in. Lance felt his anxiety spike impossibly at the clank of shoes nearing him. He wished he could turn to see who had entered. 

 

When the person stopped in front of his chair, just another nameless Galra soldier, he had a cart adorned with different metal tools. At the sight of them, Lance could feel his stomach drop. He swallowed down his anxiety. He knew much better that to ever let any of these boneheads see his vulnerability, he couldn’t hand them even more power to dangle over his head. His outburst in his cell was a slip up he couldn’t let happen again. 

 

His hands were shaking. His mouth felt dry and his heart was pumping with such ferocity that he was sure it wasn’t healthy. He’d never felt more terrified in his life and nobody had even  _ done _ anything to him yet.

 

But like hell would he let any of his captors know that.

“Ah, doctor! Nice to see you again. I’m ready for my check up,” He said, straightening himself in his chair. 

 

“Shut your mouth, prisoner,” The Galra soldier responded.

 

“Jesus, you are  _ touchy _ ! I’m definitely going to look into finding a new doctor.”

 

“I suggest you tone down your foolishness, human,” The Galra spat, lips curled in a snarl.

 

“ _ I _ suggest you don’t give me suggestions, purple man,” Lance retaliated. The soldier growled, grabbing Lance’s face in his hand and squeezing his cheeks together painfully. Lance couldn’t help the wail he let out at the painfully strong grip. 

 

“If it were up to me I’d be plucking out your organs right now and feeding them to you one by one,  _ Paladin _ , and if you don’t have the information we desire I very well  _ may _ ,” He threatened. Lance swallowed. “So if you’d like to keep your heart  _ inside _ of your chest you best refrain from being puerile,” he finished, pulling away roughly. Lance bit down the desire to rub at his sore cheeks and shut his lips. 

 

The Galra soldier didn’t stay much longer, just fiddled with the metal tools before roughly tightening Lance’s constrainments. Lance sat in solitude once again. He could feel his hands steadily going numb with the lack of bloodflow and he tamped down his squeamishness as best as he could. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes before he heard footsteps approaching him once again. For once he was actually missing the dog bed.

 

“We meet again, Blue Paladin,” The Galra said dismissively. He stopped just to the right of the metal cart, standing tall with his arms behind his back.

 

“Sendak!” Lance couldn’t believe his eyes. “You’re alive?!”

 

“I don’t have the time to entertain your empty-headed observations.” is all he said, turning to examine the metal tools. Lance scowled. What is with the Galra and being such tight asses? 

 

“Alright, Paladin. I’ll let you know that if you cooperate now, considerably less pain will come to you. If you fail to disclose, Haggar will employ a different method of obtaining the information we need from you,” Sendak stated. Lance kept silent through his clustering emotions. He couldn't feel his hands anymore.

 

Upon hearing no response from Lance, Sendak grabbed the scalpel, making a shallow cut right under Lance’s left eye. The latter was petrified for the moment that he was about to cut it out or something of that nature but Sendak simply held an opaque metal tube under the cut and let some of the blood drip into it. He let the cut bleed after pulling the tube away and Lance winced when a drop of blood dripped onto his bare chest. 

 

“First question: How do you open wormholes?” Sendak asked. His tone was deep, demanding an answer. Lance was at a loss. He couldn’t answer that even if he wanted to, he had no idea . He didn’t know whether it would be better to say he doesn’t know or to simply stay silent. He decided on the former.

 

“I don’t know,” He responded. Sendak’s mouth formed a tight line. 

 

“I’ll ask you again. How do you open your wormholes?”

 

“I told you I don’t know. I don’t open them myself.” Sendak didn’t look pleased, but moved on anyway.

 

“Where is Voltron planning to strike next?” Lance almost wanted to laugh.  _ ‘Planning to strike’ _ made Voltron sound like some sort of serial criminal. The Galra’s ignorance of what Voltron does is palpable and quite ironic if Lance is being honest.

 

Lance doesn’t find it very funny though, because he knows Sendak isn’t going to like his answer. 

 

“I don’t know,” he said again. It wasn’t a lie but he wasn’t giving a whole answer, really. Sendak growled, grabbed ;Lance sharply by the neck. 

 

“I was generous and gave you the option to cooperate without pain. Tell me what I want to know, Paladin. You’re only hurting yourself here,” He hollered over the sound of Lance gasping for breath. Lance whimpered, trying to shake the hand off of his windpipe. Not only was Sendak cutting off his airflow, the Galra’s sharp nails were piercing into his neck. Sendak had all the power here, he could slit Lance’s throat in an instant with the position he’s in, and Lance doesn’t doubt that he would. 

 

The human coughed, his shoulders shaking when Sendak finally let him go. He was a second away from passing out under the lack of oxygen and the sudden filling of his lungs when the Galra let go made him dizzy. He needed a break. 

 

“What is Voltron’s next move? This is your last chance to answer under your own volition,” Sendak said after a few seconds of Lance wheezing for air. His tone of voice was less hard than before, almost like he wasn’t expecting an answer. Lance didn’t give him one.

 

Lance was bracing himself for the other man to grab him again, maybe to just snarl menacingly at him at the very least but the only response to his silence was an unsettling smile, like the lack of answer was just what he was hoping for. Sendak’s arms returned to their position behind his back as he walked away. Lance craned his head to watch him go, anxious with the sudden appearance of glee. 

 

He heard some clicking (maybe the room wasn’t so empty after all) and then Sendak was speaking to someone,  _ My Lord _ , he’d referred to them as, and briefing them that  _ ‘Interrogating the prisoner has been of no use.’ _  Lance didn’t like how weak he felt in his position, unable to see what’s going on behind him. 

 

“Bring in Haggar. Acquire any intelligence he has that could be deemed useful by any means necessary. If you come back empty, contact the others.” The voice instructed. 

 

“But  _ sir _ , there is no way we could contact them witho-”

 

“Find a way!” The voice boomed, making Lance flinch though it wasn’t directed at him.

 

“Yes, sir,” Sendak replied simply, followed by more clicking before the sound of his footsteps faded out of the room. Lance’s mind was plagued with questions.  _ Was that Zarkon he was talking to? Who is Haggar? What is she going to do to me?  _ Lance recalled what the other man had said.  _ ‘By any means necessary.’ _

 

At the sound of twin pairs of approaching footsteps, far sooner than Lance has anticipated, the human panicked.  _ Calm, stay calm. Don’t show vulnerability. They won’t see you that way.  _

 

It was frustrating knowing, there was nothing he could have done to mend his situation. There’s no way to mask this with regret and thoughts of ‘Why didn’t I just cooperate?’ when he doesn’t know the things they’re asking him to tell them. He almost wants to argue that it’s not fair, to convince them that he’s not lying but he knows Sendak doesn’t give a rats ass about being fair.

 

“I can  _ feel _ your anxiety, boy,” A woman’s voice came from right out of the view of his craned head. 

 

“Well, that’s unsettling,” Lance responded, only half joking. A woman in a big black cloak came to stand before him, appearing as if out of thin air. Lance jumped. The woman had long grey hair and piercing yellow eyes like the rest of the Galra. The cloak covered most of her. Here mere presence made the room seem darker. 

 

The woman, presumably Haggar, examined him quickly, as if she could assess his entire life story with one glance. Lance was fearful for a second that maybe she could. Her lips tugged up into a short smile and she looked beyond Lance with a nod. Suddenly, there was a piercing pain in Lance’s right temple, spreading inward. He gasped sharply in pain. It was as if someone had taken a power drill and stared drilling into his brain. A scream teared its way out of his throat as the pain slowly flooded his entire head. The pressure was agonizing and Lance was too afraid to move for fear of his head bursting open. He squeezed his eyes shut.

 

He felt open and out of control, like anyone could read into his very thoughts if they focused hard enough. Despite his earlier qualms and knowledge of how much easier it would be for him if he maintained a front to keep in his real feelings, Lance, body and mind, wasn’t strong enough to endure the intense and ever increasing pain. He screamed, sobbed, gasped, but it never ended. He could feel phantom fingers digging around in his brain. The mere action of thinking was overwhelming him, the pain a flood that was washing everything away and making a huge mess of his head. He could hear a voice pleading but he couldn’t tell if it was his, if it was even real in the first place. 

 

Suddenly, he could feel it all slipping away, like he’d stepped out of his head and was watching the chaos as he mover farther and farther. He welcomed the absence, unnerved by his lack of control over the situation, the inevitability of the pain. Slowly, everything descended into nothing. 

 

Haggar sighed as she lowered her hands, watching as the prisoner’s chin fell against his chest, his balled fists untensing.  

 

“He doesn’t know much useful information. Voltron drifts, responds to distress signals and rescues Galra prisoners mostly. He has very little knowledge of castle operations since most are operated by the Alteans on board. We have some information on all of the Paladins but none of it is beneficial in our efforts to capture Voltron,” Haggar reported. Sendak was glaring at the unconscious boy, slumped in the chair. 

 

“Useless. He’s absolutely  _ useless _ _!_ ” Sendak recited frustratedly. “I knew he was a waste of time.”

 

“Maybe not, sir. One of the Paladins has a brother and father whom we have captive,” Haggar rasped. Sendak steeled his gaze on her. 

 

“Explain.”   
  


“Sam and Matthew Holt. We found and captured them on Kerberos some months ago, along with Champion. They are being held captive 

  
“That gives us nothing more about Voltron. We’ll just have to get it out of his friends, then. We can use that information to our advantage.” Sendak said.  


 

~.~

 

Lance came to only about ten minutes later, groaning low in his throat at the pounding of his head. His ears rang and he couldn’t open his eyes for a few minutes. When he did, the first thing he saw was Sendak standing above him with crossed arms. Haggar was nowhere in sight.

 

“You really didn’t know much, did you?” He asked and Lance flinched at how loud his voice sounded to his oversensitive brain. He didn’t wait for Lance’s response before he kept talking. “You’re almost as worthless as I thought you were. You did give us an advantage though, human. Maybe your precious green Paladin will be a little more giving when someone precious to her gets involved.” And it took Lance less than a minute to decode what he had just said.  _ ‘Fuck, they know about Pidge’s family. This is all my fault.’  _

 

Sendak uncrossed his arms and walked away back towards the entrance, calling for other guards to collect Lance. The latter sat with his head hung in shame. He wished he wasn’t here, wished he could rewind time back before that dreaded fucking mission,. Hell, maybe even before he’d ever even found the blue lion. He wished none of it had ever happened but now Pidge’s family is in infinitely more danger and it’s entirely because of Lance. Pidge is never going to forgive him. Lance was the weak link, the worst Paladin of the bunch and everyone knew it, even the Galra know it. He shouldn’t have ever been involved in  _ any _ of this.

 

He doesn’t lift his head when the men loosen his ties and drag him by his armpits to his cell, though he does clench and unclench his fists to help the blood flow. He doesn’t lift his head as the soldiers chain his hands behind his back either. 

  
Lance doesn’t sleep that night, insufferable pain and betrayed hazel eyes plaguing his thoughts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know why, but I made the Galra all very articulate. It was actually quite fun to write so pretentiously.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! Leave me a comment telling me what you thought or if you have something else you want me to write. 
> 
> NOTICE: If you're ever looking for updates on what I'm writing next or when I'm doing shit for this story, go follow me on twitter @creative-lester because that's where I post all my updates


	3. Pity Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The contradicting desires for contact and a hatred of receiving it gives him mental whiplash. He tries not to think about it. 
> 
> (Or: Lance's thoughts while stuck in his cell)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's been such an extended wait for this chapter!! I've been sick with the stomach flu recently so that's at least part way to blame. 
> 
> I hope you like this chapter! It's shorter than the others (not because I've been sick and didn't write as much, I planned for it to be shorter)

He hadn’t been counting, couldn’t with no real basis of time, but Lance knew he must have been alone for quite some time. The most contact he’d had in the time between his interrogation and now was when a Galra soldier, maybe different ones, he couldn’t be sure, came to give him food. It wasn’t the food goo like they had in the castle but it tasted the same; like badly textured nothingness. His head still pounds sometimes, with the pain of having someone inside his mind. The stupid bastards gave him chronic migraines.

 

Lance’s had probably faded into irrelevancy in Galra eyes, based on how long he’d gone forgotten and the lack of beneficial evidence he was able to provide the last time he was out of his cell. Lance couldn’t quite pin how he felt about that fact. Being around the Galra, specifically Sendak, made him uncomfortable and on edge. He wasn’t safe here in the first place but being surrounded by these people heightened the feeling by a tenfold. He would like to say he was content to be locked away, free from prying yellow eyes but it wasn’t the truth. As much as he hated being out of his cell, he hated being locked in it just as much. His solitude has taken a real toll on him, enough that he’s seriously contemplated speaking to the soldiers who drop off his food a few times. He hasn’t though. 

 

The contradicting desires for contact and a hatred of receiving it gives him mental whiplash. He tries not to think about it. He misses voltron, Allura’s surprising wit and Coran’s invasive questioning about humans and Hunk’s amazing cooking and even more amazing personality. He misses Pidge’s gadgets and sass and Shiro’s leadership and unadmittedly great advice and, hell, he even misses  _ Keith, _ as insufferable as he is. 

 

Despite having been completely alone for ages, Lance is weighed down with exhaustion he can’t quite comprehend. The very thought of standing, walking, even shifting his position makes him want to groan in distaste. He knows it’s probably only a matter of time before the Galra drag him back out again and the thought of having to get up scares him more than the thought of what they could do to him. (That thought had crossed his mind a few times, what the Galra would do to him now that they have him. He thinks back to what Shiro mentioned about the gladiator fights. Lance pretty much ruled that out as an option, considering he was with a group during his capture and, at the time, he wasn’t anyone of importance when they were holding him; just another human to toy with. Lance is a Paladin, surely they have more planned for him than just tossing him in the mix of prisoners. He thinks of Shiro’s metal arm and the cart of medical tools they had shown him during his interrogation and he shudders. He doesn’t want to think about it.) He wonders if maybe his exhaustion was brought on by the Galra themselves; whether they’ve been putting sedatives in the food or pumping lazifying toxins in with the oxygen in his cell. He gave up on eating the food a small while ago, probably a day or two, but he drinks the water that they provide. When the soldiers appear to take his tray they don’t say a word about it’s untouched state. Lance refuses to believe that he stopped eating because he wanted someone to  _ care _ . He refused to believe that he’d even come close to reaching that low. He convinces himself that it’s because he can’t trust the Galra, can’t trust that they’re not poisoning or drugging him with every bite of food.

  
  


He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the things Sendak had taunted him with the last time they spoke  _ ‘Maybe your precious green Paladin will be a little more giving when someone precious to her gets involved.’  _ The thought that these sick fuckers know about Pidge’s family, the fact that they know because of  _ Lance _ makes him want to beat himself over the head until he bleeds out. How would Pidge ever be able to forgive him after supplying the Galra with a weapon like that? He can’t face her even if he were to be rescued. There’s no way he’d be able to look her in the eye knowing that he destroyed the people she cared about, gave the Galra something to dangle over her head. 

 

Realistically, Lance, the biggest fuck up of all, probably shouldn’t be a Paladin with his friends. It’s not like Allura and Coran couldn’t find a single other person with the assets Lance has that drew Blue to him. He didn’t even know what qualifications the blue lion required of it’s individual in the first place, but he’s sure it’s not overwhelming but well hidden insecurity and the astounding ability to annoy every single person you come into contact with.

 

It’s not like Lance was anyone’s favorite person anyway. All of them besides Hunk probably thought of him as a walking punchline, just one big joke. And, honestly, that might as well be all he is because he’s not worth much else. 

 

Maybe they could just move on without him, find a new blue Paladin and leave him to starve himself to death in this cell. Lance knew that realistically, the others wouldn’t do that to him but honestly, maybe it would be better for all of them if they  _ did _ . 

 

Lance wishes he were stronger, like Shiro. Shiro wouldn’t be sitting with his head hung feeling sorry for himself like Lance is. Hell, none of the others would. Pidge, who is clever beyond belief, would be taking in every detail she knows about the ship so that she can conduct a plan, same with Allura. Keith would be fuming and far from giving up, waiting for the next time a Galra soldier got close enough for him to attack. Hunk would have already found a way out of the chains binding him to the wall, Lance is sure of it. And Shiro, Shiro would never be sitting here alone wondering why he was ever born in the first place. 

 

But Lance couldn’t help it.

 

He couldn’t stop his mind from drifting to his Human ignorance, to how little and unimportant he is, to how selfish he is for even considering himself as any more than an inconsequential speck in space-time. Nothing he did was important, nothing he said was important and nothing he thought was important. Why should he go around thinking anything that happens to him at all is a big deal? Is it a big deal when someone crushes an ant while walking down the sidewalk? Does anyone even give it a second thought when they rip a few blades of grass out of the ground? If these things are so trivial, even though ants and trees are both alive too, then why is anything any human does important at all?

 

These aren’t the kind of thoughts you have when you’re happy, Lance knows. You don’t find yourself contemplating your importance in the universe when you’re in a tailored suit watching the love of your life walk down the aisle, or when you’re watching your first kid stumble across the kitchen tile from parent to parent on unstable, padded feet. Lance knew that if he were back in the castle with the other Paladins he wouldn’t be thinking these things either. It should have startled himself how little he had grown to think of himself but he really couldn’t find it in himself to care. 

  
Why should he have to?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked the chapter!! Leave a comment if you have any suggestions for other things you would like me to write or just to tell me what you thought of this chapter :)
> 
> I promise you the wait will be shorter for the next chapter I promise (mostly because it's going to be pretty short and I already have most of it written). Have a fun Halloween, if you celebrate it
> 
> NOTICE: If you're ever looking for updates on what I'm writing next or when I'm doing shit for this story, go follow me on twitter @creative-lester because that's where I post all my updates


	4. Refusal vs Refuge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance is no more than a trick up Galra sleeves, a tactic in order to disclose information and nothing more

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: THERE IS GRAPHIC (BUT SOMEWHAT BRIEF) TORTURE IN THIS CHAPTER. PROCEED WITH CAUTION
> 
> I told you this chapter was going to be very short. The next one will be a lot lot lot lot lot longer, I promise.
> 
> I hope you enjoy :)

“Zarkon, sir, we have the prisoner chained and in position for our mission.” Lance could hear Sendak’s voice but he couldn’t see him. He couldn’t quite make out where the Galra’s voice was coming from in the first place. He couldn’t bring himself to care all that much, considering he was vulnerable no matter where Sendak was. “I’m not quite sure how to go about contacting the ship.”

 

“Long before this generation of Paladins were formed we had found and tagged the ship. We have the code in our files and it will allow you to contact the ship via their main computer system without knowing the location.” 

 

“This is much useful information, sir. We could use this to override the system and bring the castle directly to us!” 

 

“Do you think so little of my intelligence? If that were a possibility then the lions would already be in my possession you imbecile. You need to actually connect to the system in order to override it and this technology will get you no closer to doing so. Focus on your task.”

 

~.~

 

Lance hung oddly in the center-back of the wide room, handcuffs securing his wrists above his head and his legs dangling freely below him. He’d have thought it foolish for his captors to leave his legs unrestrained if he weren’t so conscious of his lack of energy. He couldn’t take any of these assholes in a fight when he hadn’t eaten a single crumb in two days. 

 

The handcuffs were odd and painful, normal upon first glance but when the Galra had secured them and allowed his weight to drop, sharp spikes shot out of the insides of the cuffs, biting at his wrists. Even the barest amount of movement caused the cuffs to tighten, the spikes that had already broken through his skin digging in further as a result.

 

Across the room was a large system of computers, a large screen much like the one on the ship displaying the galaxies in large scale. Sendak stood in front of the main computer, working away at something. 

 

“Hello Paladins, Princess,” Sendak greets simply. He steps aside so that Lance is in full view of the others. He refuses to look up. 

 

Sendak swung the whip back and forth nonchalantly for a moment, pacing a bit back and forth before he looked at the screen. 

 

“I’ll make this simple as to not waste my own valuable time. Give me your current location, exact coordinates,” He demands, eyes never wavering. Shiro’s eyes narrow, but he remains silent, as does the rest of the crew. “I will repeat myself only once more. You will get this one opportunity only and there is only one correct response. There will be repercussions if you refuse. What is your current location?” No one says anything for a second. It’s clear they’re not going to give any useful information to Sendak, especially not with less than sixty seconds of pestering and a vague threat. All of them were smart enough to be cautious but none of them sensed any danger quite yet.

 

“We’re not going to give you our location,” Shiro says simply, the ever present air of authority lingering in his tone makes Lance’s heart ache. He still doesn’t look up. Sendak smiles slightly following their lack of accordance, seeming almost delighted though he hadn’t gotten the information he’d asked for.

 

“Very well, then.” Sendak flipped the switch on the strange whip, making all but the handle in his grip glow a bright orange. Realization of what was to come hit everyone a second too late. Lance screamed at the top of his lungs as the whip lashed against his abdomen, leaving a shallow, burning gash at the point of contact. His body naturally tensed with the attack, limbs flailing in shock. Seconds later, the whip lashed again, this time on Lance’s side. He wailed, body going tense. He could feel the sharp spikes of the handcuffs digging further into his wrists the more he tensed. He tried to escape the man, pulling heavily on his bounds but the more he pulled the tighter the cuffs became and he could feel the blades digging around, poking around inside of his body. The pain never ceased. He dropped limp, body shaking uncontrollably. He was in  _ hell _ .

 

His friends on the screen sat in shocked silence for a second before they all began to yell over each other, demanding, or rather begging, that the Galra stopped. He paid no mind.

 

The whip just kept coming down again and again, breaking open more and more skin. Lance’s entire body was burning, even in the moments between lashes. He sobbed with each whip. No longer struggling. A concerning amount of blood was rolling down his raised arms from his wrist wounds, rendering his already weak body even weaker.

 

After what could have been minutes or hours, Lance was too lost in agony to tell, Sendak dropped his whip. Lance’s breath was coming out in short hisses, each gash on his skin burning like they’d been slathered in acid.

  
“This is on your hands, paladins.” He said simply, stepping to the side and gesturing to Lance’s body hanging limp from his chains. He was sobbing, twitching through waves of endless pain. He stepped back in the view of the camera, smiled before cutting the feed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave me a comment with feedback or if you have suggestions for something else you'd like to see
> 
> NOTICE: If you're ever looking for updates on what I'm writing next or when I'm doing shit for this story, go follow me on twitter @creative-lester because that's where I post all my updates


	5. Eyes Closed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s nothing wrong with coping methods, until they cause you to stop putting up a fight. Until the false sense of hope doesn’t feel so false anymore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No amount of apologizing will make up for how long the wait for this chapter was but I've been through... a lot recently so I feel as though I have kind of an excuse. I'll try to be more consistent but I can't make any promises, really.
> 
> I did put a lot of effort into making this chapter good though, so I hope that you enjoy!!
> 
> Somebody asked for me to write in some more about Lance's migraines and it's not a huge staple in this chapter but I made sure to add it. It actually is a pretty important plot point in a lot of later chapters. I actually get them myself and that's why I decided to add it in originally.

There was no relief when Lance had been returned to his cell. He wasn’t sure why he expected there to be in the first place. His wounds had scarred over surprisingly quickly, leaving behind ugly white lines in their wake. Despite having healed, none of them ever stopped burning. His head never stopped pounding. 

 

His body was a void nothing, swimming with undertones. An undertone of sadness. An undertone of body aches. An undertone of suicide idealization, all fighting to get to the surface. Nothing could overbear the voidness spreading through his chest. It startled him that the sudden appearance of such awful thoughts  _ didn’t _ startle him. An undertone of fear.

 

It was another few days, Lance reckons, before he was lifted out of the familiarity of his floor mat. He had been refusing food and eventually someone must have realized that Zarkon would not be very happy if they allowed Lance to die of starvation. The thought of  his lifeless body being dumped into space to float aimlessly almost amused him

 

“If you won’t eat yourself we will force you to. You will not like facing the consequences of not complying,” Some guard had threatened as he was basically dragged past blank purple room after blank purple room. A rebuttal sat on the tip of his tongue but he never vocalized it. He didn’t have the energy.

 

Lance had kept his eyes closed, but he could feel how mechanical the process of force feeding him was. It wasn’t a surprise that they had left him conscious, considering the Galra aren’t exactly the most empathetic of species. The tube down his throat hurt but no more than any other thing he’d had to endure in his time here. He breathed laboriously through his nose and let his stomach fill. After that Lance spent increasingly more time alone, besides when food came. A guard stood outside and watched him until he had finished, and then he was by himself again. He didn’t refuse food anymore, though he felt nauseous every time he lifted the food to his mouth. He was too scared to not eat. 

 

He was growing softer by the day.

 

~.~

 

“I’m contacting you on behalf of  Zarkon, leader of the Galra Empire, who would like to offer a compromise.” Lance sat in the same chair he’d been in during his interrogation, or so he thought. All the rooms were too similar to differentiate between. Sendak stood somewhere off to his right. Lance’s eyes were forward, shifting in and out of focus without his consent. He couldn’t tell if the boredness he felt was outweighed by his sadness of vice versa. “In return for your precious friend here, you will hand over all of Voltron to the Galra empire. I’d advise you to think wisely about this offer, but you best hurry, for the Blue Paladin’s sake.” 

 

Lance listened as the feed cut off, a small assortment of beeps. He didn’t look over, realistically he probably couldn’t even if he tried. He couldn’t help but wonder though, as his eyes failed to focus once again, how Sendak was even contacting the Paladins without knowledge of their location. Galran technology was complex beyond his understanding. Maybe they did know where the castle was. Lance’s brain hurt from thinking so hard.

“You don’t actually believe they’ll give you the lions for me, do you?” Lance blurted out of nowhere, the sound of his own voice surprising himself. He hadn’t meant to vocalize that thought. He hadn’t spoken in a long time.

 

“Of course not, but I am glad you’ve come to terms with your lack of value.” He responded. Lance ignored the way his heart clenched. The purple floor tiles blurred under his gaze, once again. “But I do know that, if they come for you at all, the paladins will try and pull some sort of ruse in order to save you, thus giving us an opportunity to take what is rightfully ours. In the meantime, since you nor your friends will give us the information we desire, you are of no practical use to us anymore.”

 

“If I’m of no use to you then why did you bother pumping me with food?”  _ Fuck. Stop talking. Why can’t I stop talking? _

 

“Watch your attitude, you are vulnerable right now. Remember that,” He paused. Lance could feel his hard gaze. “I said of no  _ practical _ use, practical meaning useful in our pursuit of obtaining Voltron. There are plentiful other uses for you, prisoner.” The grin on his lips was menacing, his yellow eyes boring into Lance’s own. Lance couldn’t remember when he’d even lifted his head. 

 

“Take him to his cell.”

 

~.~

 

Sleep evaded him. His head felt like it was constantly being pressed down on, squeezed almost to the point of bursting. His eyes were open, veiny and dry and unfocused. The redness wore away when Lance kept his eyes closed in rest, but, behind his eyelids, he could almost visualize the pain of Sendak striking him with the whip. He could almost literally see his own pain and that of his friends, which he had read on their faces. He could see Pidge’s hurt at his betrayal. 

 

He doesn’t like to close his eyes. He doesn’t like to keep them open either. He has lost all control.

 

Lack of sleep has rendered his skin grey, his mind shot. The dissociation he fell into was a blessing and a curse, a distraction from his captivity while a holding him captive in itself. He felt floaty and not all there, but with that came vulnerability and lack of control. Lance, admittedly, was scared of a few things, but his fear of vulnerability was the strongest of those.

 

Lance had many siblings, a few older and even more younger. Before his younger brothers and sisters were born, when he was the very youngest, he would always catch the brunt edge of his sibling’s jokes and pranks. They teased him and scared him and put fake spiders all over his bed under the covers, as children do. From that point on, being in situations he couldn’t control gave him intense anxiety.  He begged his parents to let him have a lock on his door and when his wish was finally granted, he slept with his door locked every night. As he grew older he became less and less of a target for him sibling’s hazing, but the lock always remained in place. Back then, locks were his protection. Now locks bind his arms behind him and his feet to the floor, leaving him defenseless. 

 

He hated the chains binding his wrists, hated that they gave him leeway. Chains that provide movement, even if it’s just barely enough room for movement to lift food to his mouth, gave him a sense of being mocked. Just a taste of what it’s like to have freedom to move, but not enough. It wouldn’t surprise him if the Galra had considered that thought already. It wouldn’t surprise him if that’s the exact purpose that his chains were as loose as they were.

 

The Galra keep the line between captivity and freedom incredibly thin. It's because of this that the line between suffering and insanity is becoming increasingly thinner.

 

Lance curled up as much as his bounds would allow him, trying to shield his eyes from the harsh glare of purple without the use of his hands. Even though they stung like hell, his eyes remained open. 

 

Sometimes, when he was left alone for extensive periods of time, Lance would imagine that time wasn’t moving at all; As if everything and everyone had froze and he had time completely to himself. The thought comforted him, like he had as much time as he wanted to allow himself the privilege of letting go. He was still captive, his hands numb with disuse, but, if time wasn’t moving, then there was nothing to be afraid of.

 

Other times he feared he was going mad.  _ ‘There’s nothing wrong with coping methods’ _ he would think,  _ ‘until they cause you to stop putting up a fight. Until the false sense of hope doesn’t feel so false anymore’ _

 

~.~

 

He wondered, sometimes, what the Galra intended to do with him. Shiro had shared stories about what he could remember of him imprisonment. He spoke about gladiator-esque fights intended for entertainment, cells crowded with people, never less than 10 prisoners squished together. He had talked about, in accordance with the forced fighting, sometimes the Galra would just leave him chained and torture him, whip him and taunt him and cut him.

 

Lance understood that his circumstances are far different than Shiro’s had been. At the time of his capture, he was nothing more than another prisoner, another toy. Lance is a pilot of one of the lions of voltron. His purpose is far more critical. Surely they wouldn’t treat him the way they would any other prisoner, but that left him wondering. What do they plan? What had Sendak meant by ‘plentiful other uses’? 

 

He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. 

 

Maybe, if he was lucky, they would kill him. By picking off even one of the Paladins, they were weakening the others. If Blue no longer had a pilot, Voltron couldn’t be formed. Lance knew that his team isn’t coming for him, not when he’s on a ship this large and especially not when Voltron is at stake.. It would be a foolish move. There’s no room for argument, the fact is that Lance is not worth the risk of losing Voltron.  _ He’s not worth it. _ Surely he is not the only person who meets the requirements of being a paladin. He doesn’t even have the first idea what traits it takes to pilot Blue. He had blown his shot at finding out with a shitty narcissistic joke. At the time it hadn’t meant anything to him; all that mattered was that Blue had chosen  _ him.  _ There’s no doubt in his mind that it wouldn’t be too treacherous of a task to find another blue paladin and, once they did, Lance would truly be obsolete. 

  
  


Lance has experienced self deprecation before, has sat in loathing over the wrongs of himself many times before but it hurt more then, that his worthlessness is irrefutable. It made him feel smaller than he already is and he couldn’t understand why it hurt so much.

 

~.~

 

“Are you excited to be our guinea pig today, paladin?” The voice was familiar and the mere sound of her rugged tone sent heavy waves of anxiety down Lance’s spine. The presence of this woman made his hair stand on end, his stomach drop. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to escape. He wanted to  _ die _ .

 

After a few ticks of silence from both ends, her shaky baritone chuckle cut through the air. Lance tried not to flinch. 

 

“Given up already, I see? I didn’t expect you to have much fight in you but I did not expect you to lose your will so early. You’ve disappointed me.”

 

Lance’s heart panged. He knew he was pathetic, he knew, and the last thing he needed was another person’s commentation on the matter. He hated that the comment hurt him at all. He already had so little will, broken apart by electric whips and apathetic, power hungry Galrans.

 

“You must be wondering what it is that we plan to do to you,?” Haggar asked rhetorically. “We’ve skirted around you quite a bit, I might say. If it were up to me you would’ve been broken completely,  _ I _ wouldn’t have left you alone to rot for more than a second. You would have been completely at my mercy, completely willing to serve Zarkon and his every will,” She rambled bitterly. “But I quite like this experiment we have here today.” Lance shook in terror. 

 

He was spread out on a metal table, wrists, ankles, and forehead pinned to the table by tight metal cuffs. Above him was a bright white light, blocking out all else in the room. Haggar stood over him, her gray hair hanging in his face. He woke up there, arms stiff and legs numb. Lance glanced around as much as he could, shrouded in panic.

 

‘What are you going to do to me?” Hagar’s smile showed her jubilation, and Lance felt like he was about to be devoured. 

 

“Well, Lance, Galran technology is advancing continually and we take every opportunity we can to experiment with those technological advancements. Typically, our species’ strong suit is our tracking technology and our weaponry. Luckily for you, the gadget we’re working with today will equip you with both.” 

 

“What the fuck are you going to do to me?” Lance demanded, thrashing. The previous floaty-panic he felt had been replaced entirely by desperation. He refused to be a science experiment. 

 

The Galra had taken his will. The Galra had taken his pride. They would not take away his control. He would not become another Galra weapon. 

 

Haggar didn’t look startled at all. The jubilation was still clear on her face, accompanied by a small quirk of her lips. She looked elated by Lance’s hopeless struggle, by the power she had and, despite his tantrum, she kept her eyes on him. 

 

“Put him under and get to work,” Haggar announced, stepping out of Lance’s limited view and a second later, he was surrounded by guards. He felt cold metal pressing into the base of his arm, piercing his skin before he felt liquid flowing into his bloodstream. Lance’s thrashing diminished along with his yelling as he slipped into unconsciousness. 

 

~.~

 

The pain was absolutely unbearable. It stung, it throbbed, his entire eye socket felt like it was being ripped to pieces and smashed at the same time. Lance almost burst into tears the second he woke up. He groaned and whined incessantly, like a kicked puppy left to bleed to death on the ground. And he thought his headache was bad before.

 

He sat up slowly to put his arms in a less straining position. He couldn’t take any more pain. He had never come close to feeling pain as intense as this before and it was less than a minute before he began to sob. 

 

But tears only fell from one eye. 

 

Scrunching his eyelids intensified the pain and he let out a wail as he relaxed his eyes, leaving them gently shut. He couldn’t identify whether his head was pulsing or his eye was, maybe it was both. Never before had thinking caused him literal pain, but he couldn’t silence his mind. ‘ _ What the fuck did they do to me? Will I ever be normal again? Will I be able to see out of this eye? Did they replace my whole eye or just put something inside it.’ _

 

It couldn’t have been any less than an hour before Lance gained the courage to open his eyes. The second he did, the blinding purple burned his eyes and he slammed them back shut with a wail. He was still breathlessly sobbing, though he had cried himself out.

 

_ Alright, so I know that I can see out of this damn thing. That’s something. _

  
  
  


He tried to reach up and cover his eyes so the light wouldn’t blind him immediately but the chain stopped his hand right below his eyes and he scowled with the remembrance that he couldn’t reach his eyes to cover them. He slid back down on the mat so that he was laying down, though it hurt his arms. He used his previous method of curling into himself so that the light wasn’t direct. 

 

He slowly, once again, opened his eyes, blinking slowly. Through his left eye, the lack of light made the mat underneath him nothing but a black blob. Through his right, though, he could see every crevice and shadow in the mat clear as day. It took him a few minutes to ease himself into a sitting position in the direct light. It increased the pain quite a bit, the harsh lights, but he kept his eyes open. 

 

He turned to his right and examined the ugly purple wall with his enhanced vision. He turned to his left and saw himself. 

 

A mirror rested on the wall to his left, positioned at sitting height. It hadn’t been there before. Lance stared at himself in the mirror, stared at the bright yellow circle sitting where his right eye used to be. He was stunned for a second, nothing but his dropped jaw and the pulsing of his eye, before he screamed. He screamed at the top of his lungs and it tapered off into a loud sob, his entire chest convulsing. He couldn’t look away from the mirror, from the hideous device that had been implanted in his body. He was screaming so loudly now, the emotional pain almost outweighing the physical. On instinct, he reached his hands to his eye, jerking against the cuffs when he couldn’t quite reach.

 

He wanted it out. Get it out get it out get it  _ out _ !

 

He tugged until his wrists bled, screaming all the while. The echos of viciously rattling chains and murderous screams bounced from one ugly purple wall and off of another and Lance didn’t stop pulling, he wouldn’t until he could scratch the wrong, dirty  _ weapon  _ they’d put inside him. Blood was dripping down his arms and his wrists were beginning to go numb and Lance only pulled harder and harder and harder. He needed it out.

 

The wall opposite him faded away, revealing a pair of frantic prisoners responding to the screaming. They saw Lance, his arms bloodied and his eyes never leaving the mirror. They advanced, grabbing him by the arms but he only thrashed, refusing to take his eyes off of the mirror. They yanked and pulled and held him in place but he didn’t cease. It wasn’t until one harshly tugged him so that he was laying downwards while the other delivered a kick to his bare stomach that he looked away.

  
There was script. A text box reading ‘Name: Scavar, Sex: Male, Panicked, Desperate, Annoyed’ when he looked at the guard. Startled and in pain, he screamed louder, thrashing harder to get away from the iron grip of the soldier. The one in front of him, Scavar apparently, grabbed his gun and smashed the butt of it against Lance’s forehead forcibly, knocking him back unconscious. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it! Leave me a comment telling me what you thought or if you have any suggestions for other things you'd like me to write. ]
> 
> You can also yell at me for not updating for almost 3 months if you want sigh. I really am sorry.
> 
> NOTICE: If you're ever looking for updates on what I'm writing next or when I'm doing shit for this story, go follow me on twitter @creative-lester because that's where I post all my updates

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Since I wrote a lot of this in advance the next update is already almost ready to be published but I'm going to try to keep to a once a week schedule. 
> 
> Comment down below and tell me what you thought, or if you have any suggestions on what you want me to write!


End file.
